A Better Way to Win: Profiting from Purpose
An interesting article by Raj Sisodia explaining how conscious businesses are able to operate with superior financial results while creating many forms of wealth and well being for all of their stakeholders, including society. I am interested to hear your thoughts on Sisodia’s ideas and opinions.
A Better Way to Win: Profiting from Purpose
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes
When it comes to managing their costs most companies operate with a simple model. They start by trying to maximize their gross margins so that they have a high cushion for spending in areas where they feel they need to spend heavily in order to compete, such as advertising and promotions. But a growing number of high-performing companies are showing that there is a better way to manage spending and improve performance. These companies live and operate on the other side of complexity.
Top Talent Doesn’t Exist
A great piece by Jason Lauritsen on why top talent doesn’t necessarily exist, but is rather relative and contextual.
Top Talent Doesn’t Exist
This week, as I was facilitating a session for a group of managers, one of them asked me the question, “What does top talent really want in a job?” On the surface, that seems like a pretty good question to ask. We all want to hire the best talent and he was trying to understand what they wanted so that he could do a better job of selling to them. But, what he really meant to ask was this “What do the people who I want to hire really want in a job like those I have to offer?”
Great by Choice – A Brief Review
‘Great By Choice’
Jim Collins and Morten Hansen
Precis by Pete Laburn
None of us can predict with certainty the twists and turns our lives will take. Life is uncertain, the future unknown. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. Yet the task remains: how to master our own fate in an uncertain world.
In the book ‘Great By Choice’, Collins and Hansen asked the simple question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty and chaos, while others do not. In a world of tumultuous events and fast‐moving forces that we cannot control, what distinguishes those who perform exceptionally well, from those who underperform or worse?
Some companies and their leaders navigate uncertainty exceptionally well. They don’t merely react to situations and events, they create their own future. They don’t merely survive, they prevail. They don’t merely succeed, they thrive. They build great companies that can endure and while no company thrives on chaos, some can thrive in chaos.
‘Great By Choice’ is based on case studies conducted by Collins and Hansen and their team on a set of high‐performing companies that thrived during times of great uncertainty in their respective industries. Each case study company started from a position of vulnerability, rose to become a great company, and did so in unstable environments characterised by big forces out of their control. These high‐performing cases were called 10X companies. These cases were then compared to a control
group of companies that failed to become great, whilst operating in the same industries during the same extreme environments over the same period of time.
Leading Diversity: The Zoo vs the Wild
A recent blog done by my colleague, Graeme Codrington, who speaks about diversity in the future world of work. In his article, Graeme argues that diversity management should not be harmony, but rather an attempt to create a vibrant and sometimes brutal ecosystem that will deliver resilience, creativity, innovation and understanding. Take a read for yourself below…
Leading Diversity: The Zoo versus The Wild
By Graeme Codrington
One of the most significant leadership issues in the 21st century is going to be the issue of diversity. This is because it’s not just about ensuring the requisite numbers of women and ethnic minorities at various levels within your organisation. It’s about engaging with difference, and using that engagement to enhance your business success.
But this can only happen if we have a significant change in mindset.
Put simply: the goal of diversity is not harmony. And this is the problem: Most leaders approach the issue of diversity with a checklist in one hand (to make sure they’ve covered all the ‘diversity factors’ they’re being measured on) and a hope of maintaining harmony in the other. They see the management of diversity as the “taming of difference”.
The result is that you end up with something that looks and feels a bit like a zoo does: all the different species are there, neatly and carefully labeled, but they’re all locked up, artificially caged, and the visitors are not allowed to feed them. Zoos have their place, of course, and a lot of good work goes on in the world’s zoos. But they are not reality.
In the DreamWorks animated movie, “Madagascar”, four animals who have spent their whole lives in the New York zoo are unwittingly shipped out to Africa and dropped into the wilds of Madagascar. Initially they are thrilled. But then they encounter the reality of the natural environment. Set to Louis Armstrong’s haunting song, “What a Wonderful World”, the animals from the zoo discover that the freedom of nature can be quite brutal, with an entire ecosystem built on creative destruction and an interconnected web that is the “circle of life” (to borrow from another Disney animated movie that highlights similar themes).
And in that movie montage moment is the heart of the matter for 21st century leaders. Diversity offers much, but it requires a lot too.
If we get diversity right, what we will succeed in doing is creating work environments that are more like wild ecosystems than zoos. The benefits of true diversity would therefore include:
Resilience – the more diverse an environment, the more resilient it is when change occurs and difficulty strikes. This is true in nature, and it is true in communities too.
Understanding – in an ecosystem, it is vital to understand the different components and who does what (and to whom). True diversity will ensure that the full scope of your client base is understood within your company, regardless of how large or multinational or company is.
Collaboration
Creativity and innovation – it is only when we allow different people the space to see and experience the world in different ways that we can only really achieve innovative thinking. I firmly believe that the reason most companies never really achieve innovation is that they’ve never really embraced difference.
There are also benefits in product development, marketing, reduced staffing issues and much more. In fact, there will be benefits just about anywhere in a company where people and opinions make an impact on business performance. All of this is both well attested in business research and common sense if one thinks about it.
What then is the task of leadership?
Leaders need to firstly change their mindset about diversity. The goal is to build a flourishing, self-sustaining ecosystem, in which there is a natural, but sometimes scary and robust interaction of worldviews, attitudes, approaches, cultures and convictions. Leaders need to embrace this slightly chaotic environment, not attempting to tame or control it, but rather to immerse themselves in it and become guides to lead others through it.
This means, secondly, that leaders need to model a behaviour that is suited for the wild, not the zoo.
In a zoo, the goal is to cage and tame the scary animals. In the wild, you want them to run free. You want them to be who they are best meant to be. And you want everyone else to understand them, respect them, trust them and connect with them in the most appropriate way.
Dignity, trust, respect: these are not just words on a meaningless list of values handed down from head office. They are the heart of leadership in the 21st century ecosystem – and they are instilled best when they are instilled by example.
Thirdly, leaders need to promote diversity as a tool, not a goal in itself. Diversity is only a means to an end. The purpose of a zoo is to showcase animals. But the purpose of the wild is to live, to grow, to flourish together. That should be the goal of diversity.
And that should be what 21st century leaders aim to achieve by creating – and sustaining – groups and teams that evidence – and celebrate – real differences.
Dr Graeme Codrington is an author, presenter and board advisor on the future world of work. He is co-founder and international partner of TomorrowToday, a business strategy consultancy. He can be contacted at graeme@tomorrowtoday.uk.com and is lead blogger at http://www.newworldofwork.co.uk
Read Original Article HERE
Five scenarios for 2050
The below information and video was recently put together by global logistics giant DHL at the launch of their major study into the future and the role of logistics in the world 2050. DHL put together 5 scenarios for what the future of the world could look like in 2050. They have a dedicated website for their study: www.delivering-tomorrow.com. The full 182-page scenario write up can be downloaded as a PDF here, download the five page summary here or read the launch press release (and download the free resources).
The 5 Scenarios are:
1: Untamed Economy – Impending Collapse (this is the current world continued for another four decades, as we use up our natural resources and mess up the planet)
2. Megaefficiency in Megacities (this is a grand vision for “green” cities and a nearly completely urbanised world)
3. Customized Lifestyles (individualization and personalized consumption are pervasive – a technology driven vision of the future)
4. Paralyzing Protectionism (globalisation collapses, war and decay dominate)
5. Global Resilience – Local Adaptation (a scenario dominated by climate related changes, where mitigating vulnerability is the primary driver)
Why Top Talent Leaves Your Organisation
An outstanding article by Erika Anderson of Forbes magazine detailing the one reason why top talent leaves your organisation and how to go about retaining this talent if you truly value them. I look forward to your thoughts about this piece in the comments section below…
The 6 Habits of Strategic Thinkers
The below article is particularly relevant to many managers and executives running organisations and departments in a post modern world. As I have mentioned on my blog before, strategy is not something you attempt once or twice a year, rather it is something you do..continually, repetitively and at every possible decision you make. Strategic thinking needs to become intuitive and an everyday part of how you manage and run yourr business. These 6 habits will give you a clear indication as to whether or not you are on the right track.
Undermining the Constitution
Undermining the Constitution
By Reuel Khoza
A storm erupted in South Africa during the past fortnight, and it was not Cyclone Irina that caused it. The latter dumped some heavy rain on the east coast and then went away into the Indian Ocean south of Madagascar where it sat lurking.
The storm I am talking about arose over a City Press report stating that the ANC government plans to revise the Constitution.Three particular changes were mooted in City Press:
- Removing the basic right of property ownership,
- Reducing and centralising the powers of the provinces, and
- Tampering with the independence of the Reserve Bank.
It just so happens we are in Constitution Week when we are supposed to celebrate the document, not mourn its passing.
Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
Many of you will know that I always push the need for organizations to have and stand by a clear sense of purpose for their leaders and their business. An organisation without a clear sense of purpose, typically resort to an exploitative approach wherein the sole purpose becomes the pursuit of making as much money as possible instead of seeing how much value they can add to their industry, market and society. The below blog, written by South African Greg Smith, is a perfect example of what I am talking about in regard to this subject. I have long held the view that Goldman Sachs have lost their soul and the proverbial plot, but this article comes straight from the front lines to perfectly sum it up.
When nobody (and everybody) is the boss
When nobody (and everybody) is the boss
By Polly LaBarre
As a reverse fairy tale for the CEO set, the reality television program Undercover Boss is fascinating, not so much in the witness-to-a-train- wreck mode of the rest of the genre, but because it is so revealing of our conflicted relationship with “the boss.”
The premise of the show–that the only way to get a clue about what’s really going on in his (or her) organization, is for the boss to go undercover on the front lines–is all too often the actual reality in organizations of any size. Yet, at the same time, the view of the boss as the ultimate authority with the heroic power to swoop in and save the day–whether that means paying down a mortgage, granting an instant promotion, or banishing a reviled policy–holds sway in real life as well as on “reality” TV.
Entrepreneurs in Chains
Clem Sunter’s recent article ‘Entrepreneurs in Chains’ is a particularly insightful and, in my opinion, accurate summation of how the South African business and government sector need to shift their thinking with regard to the role that the entrepreneur must play in our countries economic future. I am, as always, interested to hear your thoughts in the comments section below..
Entrepreneurs in Chains
By: Clem Sunter
This article is prompted by two conversations I have had recently; one with a young Chinese woman at a lunch with friends last Sunday and the other with a South African businessman who has just returned from Lagos in Nigeria.
In the first conversation, the lady said that despite the strong political hold that the Chinese Communist Party has over the nation, in the minor towns and villages across the country economic anarchy reigns. This has been incredibly beneficial in that it has led to an entrepreneurial revolution which has propelled China to No 2 in the global economic order behind the US. It may not be the sole cause because you have to consider foreign investment in China as well, but sure as night follows day it has helped.
Reimagining Capitalism—as Principled, Patient, and Truly Social
Reimagining Capitalism—as Principled, Patient, and Truly Social
By: Gary Hamel and Polly LaBarre
While the global financial meltdown and its aftershocks have unleashed a flood of indignation, condemnation, and protest upon Wall Street, the crisis has exposed a deeper distrust and implacable resentment of capitalism itself.
Capitalism might be the greatest engine of prosperity and progress ever devised, but in recent years, individuals and communities have grown increasingly disgruntled with the implicit contract that governs the rights and responsibilities of business. The global economy and the Internet have heightened our sense of interconnectedness and sharpened our awareness that when a business focuses only on enriching investors, managers view the interests of customers, employees, communities—and the fate of the planet—as little more than cost trade-offs in a quarter-by-quarter game.
Connections with Integrity
Connections with Integrity
by Reid Hoffman
The venture capitalist who cofounded LinkedIn reveals the surefire system that he has used since high school for evaluating potential business relationships.
As a venture capitalist, and the cofounder of the leading online professional networking site, I am keenly aware of the value of good alliances. Indeed, my interest in the nature of alliances began long ago, when I was a freshman in high school. Thinking about what I would do with my life, I came up with a perfect plan. My friends and I would all seek positions of power: One of us would be president of the United States; another would be president of IBM; another would run a powerful nonprofit. We’d coordinate our efforts and change the world together. Seems like a lofty ambition for a high schooler, I know, but we truly believed that if we joined forces, anything in life was possible.
What is Strategic Lag?
Strategic Lag is a name given to a phenomena which I have witnessed regularly in my strategic consulting. Particularly relevant amongst executive decision makers, this lag transcends organizations, industries and countries and is applicable to just about any strategic process in varying degrees. As its name implies Strategic Lag suggests that the actions you take, or don’t take, today will only be manifest some time into the future and give you the capacity you desire down the road. i.e.: The strategic planning of today will only begin to see the relevant results in due course.
How the ‘talented’ become ‘untalented’ -7 Questions About Your Own Talent
We’ve all seen it before…the whizz kid arrives as the new talent, pouring his fresh brand of creativity, ideas and innovation into a project, assignment or campaign. The results speak for themselves and he is handsomely rewarded at the completion of it. Then comes project number two and the talent rests on his laurels, still contributing yet without the same edge. By project number three he/she is just another member of the team and by project 4 they are a liability in terms of their value add. So what goes wrong?
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